TPS Turku

The record books at Turku still list a night that has nothing to do with pucks and skates: in 1997, a club beat its way to the top of Europe altogether, lifting the European Hockey League trophy three years after doing the same in the IIHF European Cup.

The championship count runs to eleven altogether, starting in 1956 and closing, for now, in 2010. After that last title the team fell away, missing the playoffs more than once before working its way back into contention, a comedown made sharper by what the club had built its name on in between: a production line that sent Saku Koivu, Mikko Koivu, Miikka Kiprusoff and, more recently, Mikko Rantanen, Kaapo Kakko and Juraj Slafkovský into the NHL. Five numbers hang retired inside the arena for players who never left that story behind, Saku Koivu's 11 among them.

Turku's other hockey club, TuTo, dropped out of the top division long ago, so the derby that once defined the city now belongs to football, between TPS and FC Inter Turku. On the ice, the needle points north to Tampere and Ilves instead. Home games are played in black and white at the Gatorade Center, built in 1990 to replace the old Kupittaan jäähalli.

Eleven championships, two European titles, one golden decade.